The March 1 presidential primary gathering of Georgia and other southern states is commonly known as the SEC Primary, and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has taken the football connotations literally, spending his fall Saturdays hitting tailgates in key states.
We pointed out before how Jeb! is utilizing the SEC logo. But we should not forget that the Southeast Conference is a billion-dollar business. From USA Today:
On the other hand, Bush could simply declare that he's running in the Securities Exchange Commission primary.
In other Jeb news, Politico reports that in addition to his fundraising numbers today, Bush will release his list of bundlers, tax return and health records. That's as good an indication as any that his third quarter fundraising number will not be strong.
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Over at PeachPundit.com, Charlie Harper tells us that GOP presidential candidate Ben Carson will be in Augusta today for fundraiser sponsored by former congressional candidate Wright McLeod and the family of the late congressman Charlie Norwood. There's a $250 entry fee.
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Gov. Nathan Deal is depicting his plan to add two judges to the Georgia Supreme Court as a "logical" realignment of the judiciary and not a backdoor effort to give him more power over the state's top court.
Deal's remarks came in a sit-down interview with The Daily Report, Atlanta's legal newspaper, in which he also rejected the suggestion that his office offered a new courthouse building to sweeten the pot for the judiciary.
He also said the expansion proposal was not aimed at making it easier for Republican proposals to get judicial approval, or to tilt the balance in favor of hot-button issues that could one day land before the court. "I don't have but just a few years in office, so there's not anything that I would gain by any legislative agenda that I have in mind," he told the Daily Report.
As to resistance from some jurists, including former Justice Hardy Gregory, Deal said it boiled down to a simple animus: '"Small organizations never want new members."
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It’s becoming clear that the most immediate impact
of the current DeKalb County corruption flap isn’t whether interim CEO Lee May stays or goes, but the extent to which LaVista Hills advocates are using the issue to push their cityhood drive. The vote is Nov. 3.
Marjorie Hall Snook, a member of DeKalb Strong, an opposing group, sends recordings of three robocalls that she says are inundating local neighborhoods. She notes that the telephone ads don’t identify who’s paying for them, and that the call back number is fake.
And the content is intended to be provocative:
-- No. 1: "This our last chance to send a message to the corrupt DeKalb County government."
-- No. 2: "Don't believe Lee May's henchmen, who are trying to scare you into voting against a new city. They just want to keep their tax dollars all for themselves. You have a chance to vote against county corruption and vote yes to a brand new city government."
-- No. 3: "Please remember, the only way Lee May and the DeKalb County Commission can be stopped from raising your taxes again, is for you to be protected by a new city that is able to opt out of bond and sales tax referendums."
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The hate-mongers at Westboro Baptist Church have set their sights on Rep. John Lewis. From Roll Call:
"No one, but no one, should be put down because of sexual orientation," Lewis told a roomful of at-risk, elementary- and high school-age children this summer during a trip to San Diego to promote the second installment of his autobiographical comic, "March," at Comic-Con International.
Confidence is high a few clumsily written signs and some name calling will not deter a civil rights hero who firmly believes in causing "necessary trouble."
Here's a photo Westboro posted of its protest at a Lewis speech last night in Topeka, Kan.
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A bizarre story here involving Donald Trump and Atlanta's NewsRadio 106.7. Our AJC colleague Rodney Ho has the full tale, with audio:
"They said they wouldn't take questions about his policy because his policies, they weren't set in stone," McCoy said. And he said he had to clear even non-policy questions.
But an attorney representing Trump Donald McGahn emailed me and referred me to an updated version of the Buzzfeed story. McGahn disputed McCoy's account, claiming McCoy basically pieced together a year-old interview with Trump and made it sound like it was new. In his email, he said he spoke with McCoy, who admitted to him it was a year-old interview. McGahn said Trump's handlers didn't restrict the interview because it wasn't a new interview so there was nothing to restrict.
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Andy Miller at Georgia Health News points to the lack of comparison shopping info when it comes to routine health care procedures here:
All the variations aside, Atlanta's average price of $241 for a mammogram is actually at the lower end nationally. The average for a mammogram ranged from $485 in Sacramento, Calif., to $159 in Cincinnati.
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For all the business and political leaders cheering last week's signing in Atlanta of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, it might be a while before any benefits show up. Like, a long while. From Politico:
Mike Sommers, chief of staff for Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), said at a Ripon Society meeting that Congress was unlikely to move on the massive trade package until a lame-duck session more than a year from now. Hazen Marshall, policy director for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who was also at the session, agreed that a TPP vote was more likely to happen in a lame-duck session, and added that the White House was trying to work with congressional leaders on timing.
One attendee said the senior GOP staffers' message was "TPP is dead until the lame duck."
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